Hydroscience

A bit over a year ago, I saw an episode of Mythbusters, where the theory was that so long as your hand is wet and very cold, you could quickly dunk it in and out of molten lead. This is called the "Leidenfrost Effect." While it's a nifty party trick, practially speaking, it happens in a variety of other instances - metal smithing and cooking to name a few.

What's super-neat is that if you get the right temperatures (hot) and time the action just right, you can get a picture of the object completely encased in a bubble of water vapor.

To explain the process, I put together this short video of the science and technique behind the process.

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the experiment. Click any of the pictures to check out the gallery of the rest of the pictures.